Yesterday, the Atlantic Council unveiled its Global Citizen Awards. The choice of honorees is a clear example of the normalisation of the contemporary authoritarian shift that bridges neoliberal economic policies, liberal 'centrism' and far-right nationalism. A 🧵 1/ The first award went to Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana. Interestingly, while now presented as someone with “enduring commitment to public service” he was, until recently, held responsible for destroying Ghana’s economy through “overspending”. 2/

Images of the hundreds of thousands of dead fish that float in the water near Volos, Greece have made international news. How did this happen? A thread. 1/ Unable to ignore this nightmarish situation, authorities have now closed the dam that brought the dead fish to the sea and have collected more than 160 tons (!) of dead fish. This stopped the dead fish from reaching the port of Volos but it did not stop the problem. 2/

Interesting exchange here between @leninology and @AntonJaegermm for @NewLeftReview on the recent pogroms in the UK. Rather than antithetical, Id say that both texts illuminate different aspects of the same situation. Here are some comments on both however: 1/

@leninology @AntonJaegermm @NewLeftReview @AntonJaegermm says that to understand the pogroms we need more "political economy" and less "mass psychology". If this is meant as a critique of @leninology I fail to see why. I did not recognise any attempt to use psychology (mass or otherwise) in Dreaming of Downfall. 2/

So, I have not seen any extensive discussion of the macroeconomic programme of the NFP (in English) so I took a look and, in the hope that my French has not totally deteriorated, here is what I got from it. (This is more of a presentation with only small comments) 1/ My initial reaction to the first point raised in the programme was negative. Bold references to Macron’s increase of deficit spending and public debt made me thing that this was written by a resurrected Delors. But the devil seems to be in the details. 2/

A thread about a crazy (and indicative) WW2 story on central banking, the Reichsbank, the BiS, BoE's Norman, CBI and some guest stars (no, its not about the 1939 memorandum). 1/ On January 7th, 1939, Hjalmar Schacht and the entire directorate of the Reichsbank signed a memorandum, complaining about Hitler’s inflationary spending to fund rearmament. Among them, future BdL & Bundesbank members Wilhelm Vocke and Karl Blessing 2/

Hearing those who praised the Troika's austerity process until they were blue in the face complain today about "European interference against a 'democratic sovereign country'" could have been the start of a good joke. It is not. A 🧵 1/



After attacking the European Parliament *for doing its job* in response to the European Resolution, the Greek government and its 🤡 jesters have now set their sights on the European Public Prosecutors’ Office (EPPO). 2/

https://x.com/PRoufos/status/1755564047406117021?s=20

European elections, lies and personal data.

A thread about (yet another) example of governmental indifference towards the rule of law and what it tells us about the political landscape of Greece. 1/ 🧵 Last Friday, hundreds (if not thousands) of expatriate Greek voters opened their personal email accounts to find an email/newsletter sent to them by New Democracy MEP Asimakopoulou. The newsletter contained information about voting in the upcoming EU elections from abroad. 2/

Yesterday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution raising "grave concerns about very serious threats to democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights" in Greece. This came after repeated reports from EU and non-EU organisations about their visible decline. 1/ A majority of MEPs (330 vs 254) expressed their concern about violations contrary to compliance, among others, to Art. 2 and Art. 7, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, human rights treaties of the UN & Council of Europe 2/

Today, the European Court of Justice issued a ruling against the Greek state that opens up a window to think back at some of the events from the far-distant 2012, a year of revolt, trials and tribulations. So here is a long thread to explain the case and add some context. 1/ More than a memory trip, this thread also serves as a way of retracing the steps that led us to the contemporary bottomless abyss of authoritarian/far-right normalisation and dehumanisation. And the people who contributed to it. 2/

While people in Greece are still trying to fathom the shocking devastation from the flooding of Thessaly - initial reports speak of a loss of 22% of total agricultural capacity, a minimum of 5 years before the land can be fertile & a daily increase in the number of dead 1/ >> government ministers and friendly media are celebrating the recent upgrade of the country's Long-Term Foreign and Local Currency – Issuer Ratings from BB (high) to BBB (low), by the DBRS ratings agency (one of the 4 that the ECB recognises). 2/

After many days of silence the Greek PM gave a speech today in Parliament. What he said was even worse than what one would have expected. Tons of comments to be made (possibly a longer thread will follow) but I'll start with the most strikingly appalling one: 1/ He claimed that the 18 migrants who died in the massive fire in Evros "should not have been in the forest", especially since an evacuation warning was sent (in two languages). Their death was, in short, their fault. Now picture the same statement but if the dead were Greeks. 2/

Make no mistake: in the future, these days will be remembered not only for the ecological devastation that took place in Greece in the summer of 2023 but as a key conjunctural point of the country’s final descent into fascism. 1/ There are currently hundreds of wildfires in different parts of Greece. This is an official list that shows the largest ones. “Εκτός ελέγχου” means “out of control". 2/

In December 1945, a small number of Greeks boarded the ship Mataroa. Many of them would become highly renowned in fields like philosophy, art, literature and radical politics. This is a long thread on a journey that changed history. 1/ The ship was returning from Palestine, where it had brought Jewish survivors of the holocaust. It was then chartered by the French Institute of Athens to bring the first batch of a couple hundred Greeks who had been granted scholarships for graduate studies in Paris. 2/

Observing the devastating fires in Algeria, Sicily, Rhodes etc the fault lines of a political divide that will determine the next years and the unavoidable struggles against apocalypse are already visible. 1/

There are two main issues at stake right now: climate change and state capacity/preparation for it. Looking at politicians’ statements, media coverage and social media comments (the difference between them collapsing every day) >> 2/

1. Ever since the Pylos disaster I have not noticed any comparison with the Lampedusa tragedy of 2013. Back then, a boat with more than 400 migrants issued a distress call when the engine gave up. The Italian coast guard responded & saved 155 people. 360 never made it. 2. The Pylos disaster has claimed more victims. Yet the death toll is not the only thing that separates the two catastrophes. A cursory examination of the way Lampedusa was reported at the time and how officials reacted reveals a much more ominous fact: >>

1. Let’s make it clear for those who pretend not to understand: the decision to migrate has nothing to do with the existence or absence of a wall, a border fence, of militarised cops or subcontracted militias in the oceans. 2. Building walls, putting up fences, doing pushbacks and funding slave-trading militias as border guards does not stop migration. It only determines its path and the degree of danger of the journey.

“If it was your son” by Sergio Guttilla, 2018 Original Italian version

Debating the ratification of the Schuman Plan that led to the inauguration of the European Coal & Steel Community, the first formal step towards European integration, ca. 1950. And some 'related concerns':

Thread.

Yesterday the Press Officer of New Democracy openly threatened members of the muslim/Turkish minority of of Rodopi with depriving them of the “self-evident rights enjoyed by all Greek citizens” if they failed to support “MPs who promote Greek national policies”. 1/ Such profoundly authoritarian, nationalist and frankly unconstitutional statements have, unfortunately, become common place. Their proliferation in recent weeks can be explained by examining this map that portrays the electoral results of May 2023. 2/

1. One of the most important composers of contemporary Greece, Giannis Markopoulos, died a few days ago at 84. Like many others of his generation, his songs were often music compositions set to sublime poems, which made the latter immediately accessible to a wider public. With a tune that gets stuck on one’s mind even after just one listen, perhaps his most famous song is Μαλαματένια λόγια (roughly translated as “words of gold”). It is without doubt the most iconic song of the post-dictatorship era (μεταπολίτευση).

3d and final day of the Crisis capitalism, shadow banking and central banks conference in Hanover. Sessions start with @Prof_Scherrer on crypto assets in the shadow of the great financial crisis Asking questions about the relationship between regulation of big banks & the growth of crypto and why governments are promoting crypto, @Prof_Scherrer uses a Kindleberger/Minsky framework to understand the economic & a hegemony/Gramscian for the political logic of crypto >>